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A haunting and seductive tale of a young career woman who slides quickly into the role of stepmother, in a life that may still belong to someone else. “Vivid, addictive, and crackling with life (yes, even the ghost), House of Beth asks us to consider how and why we make the lives we make” (Lynn Steger Strong).

OCD intrusive thoughts.

After a heart-wrenching breakup with her girlfriend and a shocking incident at her job, Cassie flees her life as an overworked assistant in New York for her hometown in New Jersey, along the Delaware. There, she reconnects with her high school best friend, Eli, now a widowed father of two. Their bond reignites, and within a few short months, Cassie is married to Eli, living in his house in the woods, homeschooling the kids, and getting to know her reserved neighbor, Joan.

But Cassie’s fresh start is less idyllic than she’d hoped. She grapples with harm OCD, her mind haunted by gory, graphic images. And she’s afraid that she’ll never measure up to Eli’s late spouse, who was a committed homemaker and traditional wife. No matter what Cassie does, Beth’s shadow still permeates every corner of their home.

Soon, Cassie starts hearing a voice narrating the house’s secrets. As she listens, the voice grows stronger, guiding Cassie down a path to uncover the truth about Beth’s untimely death.

Don't just take our word for it...

“House of Beth is a stunning debut novel that is compelling and surprising and haunting. Kerry Cullen’s sharp and beautiful prose is the lifeline of this book, telling us the story of Cassie—a young woman working in New York—as she returns home to New Jersey and rekindles an old relationship. Cullen subverts our expectations at every step, constructing a book that is unexpected, impossible to put down, and one that is so very satisfying at its end.”
– Laura Spence-Ash, author of Beyond That, the Sea

“House of Beth perfectly captures that tenuous moment in your twenties when your adult life doesn’t yet have a solid foundation. Cassie—seemingly irresponsibly—decides to walk away from New York City and her job in publishing, only to end up in a marriage, a ghost story, and a new life so strange that it matches the strangeness she has always carried inside her. A lovely story about how even though unraveling a life can be dangerous, there are possibilities in the heart of that darkness.”
– Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful

“House of Beth is the ghost story I’ve been waiting for—steamy and audacious; terrifically paced. What begins as an unsettling tale of precipitated marriage and loneliness twists and explodes into an exquisite finale.”
– Sanaë Lemoine, author of The Margot Affair

Taste the very first page

Every time I woke up, someone died. Usually my girlfriend, Lavender, or my dad, or my boss. Sometimes one of the other assistants. Or strangers I’d seen on the street, unlucky enough to have gotten their faces lodged in my brain, or people I remembered from long ago: the little girl I tutored in college, or Eli McKean. I saw them hacked to bits one by one, or force-fed poison, or tied up together and burnt like witches, their skins blistering over a blazing pyre.

The victims changed, but the murderer was always the same, always me. My hands smeared in gore, eyes alight with frenzied ecstasy. My smile, but wrong, more devious. In my real life, I sat up in bed to rub sleep out of my eyes, I stood in a shower I’d turned hot enough to hurt, I sniffed the armpits of my favorite dress. I kissed Lavender goodbye, or I smiled thinly at my roommates on my way out the door. All while the images poured through me, and I tried to convince myself that they meant nothing, that I didn’t want them. I didn’t want to kill anyone, I thought.

On Halloween evening, Lavender showed up at my office dressed like the night sky, holding a black umbrella, paper stars strung to it with fishing line. I was Donna Tartt in a blazer I’d thrifted on my lunch break—my old bedbug terror had surged like bile; I’d swallowed it down—and a low bun I’d fashioned to look like a bob.

July 2025